Daddy-Long-Legs (novel) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Daddy Long-Legs is a 1912 epistolary novel

Epistolary novel

An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used. Recently, electronic "documents" such as recordings and radio, blogs, and e-mails have also come into use...

by the American writer Jean Webster

Jean Webster

Jean Webster was an American writer and author of many books including Daddy-Long-Legs and Dear Enemy...

. It follows the protagonist, a young girl named Jerusha "Judy" Abbott, through her college years. She writes the letters to her benefactor, a rich man whom she has never seen.

Plot summary

Jerusha Abbott was brought up at the John Grier Home, an old-fashioned orphanage

Orphanage

An orphanage is a residential institution devoted to the care of orphans – children whose parents are deceased or otherwise unable or unwilling to care for them...

. The children were wholly dependent on charity

Alms

Alms or almsgiving is a religious rite which, in general, involves giving materially to another as an act of religious virtue.It exists in a number of religions. In Philippine Regions, alms are given as charity to benefit the poor. In Buddhism, alms are given by lay people to monks and nuns to...

and had to wear other people's cast-off clothes. Jerusha's unusual first name was selected by the matron off a grave stone (she hates it and uses "Judy" instead), while her surname was selected out of the phone book. At the age of 18, she has finished her education and is at loose ends, still working in the dormitories at the institution where she was brought up.

One day, after the asylum's trustees have made their monthly visit, Judy is informed by the asylum's dour matron that one of the trustees has offered to pay her way through college. He has spoken to her former teachers and thinks she has potential to become an excellent writer. He will pay her tuition and also give her a generous monthly allowance. Judy must write him a monthly letter, because he believes that letter-writing is important to the development of a writer. However, she will never know his identity; she must address the letters to Mr. John Smith, and he will never reply.

Dedication

The book is dedicated "To You." Today this book is often classified as young adult literature

Young adult literature

Young-adult fiction or young adult literature , also juvenile fiction, is fiction written for, published for, or marketed to adolescents and young adults, roughly ages 14 to 21. The Young Adult Library Services of the American Library Association defines a young adult as "someone between the...

or even children’s literature, but at the time it was part of a trend of "girl" or "college girl" books which featured young female protagonists dealing with post-high-school concerns such as college, career, and marriage. These books predated the contemporary view of adolescence

Adolescence

Adolescence is a transitional stage of physical and mental human development generally occurring between puberty and legal adulthood , but largely characterized as beginning and ending with the teenage stage...

. Other authors who wrote in this vein include L. M. Montgomery

Lucy Maud Montgomery

Lucy Maud Montgomery OBE , called "Maud" by family and friends and publicly known as L.M. Montgomery, was a Canadian author best known for a series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables, published in 1908. Anne of Green Gables was an immediate success...

and Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist. She is best known for the novel Little Women and its sequels Little Men and Jo's Boys. Little Women was set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, and published in 1868...

Themes

The themes of this book reflect upon Webster's interests in social work and women's suffrage. Some scholars have criticized Daddy-Long-Legs as being an "anti-feminist fairy tale", while others have argued that Judy shows growing independence, including increasing disobedience to her benefactor and his wishes, and indeed succeeds in educating Daddy-Long-Legs that he cannot control her, and that his socialism needs to move from the academic into real life.

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

This book was Webster's best-known work. It was made into a stage play and a 1952 British stage musical comedy called Love from Judy, as well as films in 1919 (starring Mary Pickford

Mary Pickford

Mary Pickford was a Canadian-born motion picture actress, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...

), 1931 (starring Janet Gaynor

Janet Gaynor

Janet Gaynor was an American actress and painter.One of the most popular actresses of the silent film era, in 1928 Gaynor became the first winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in three films: Seventh Heaven , Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans and Street Angel...

and Warner Baxter

Warner Baxter

Warner Leroy Baxter was an American actor, known for his role as The Cisco Kid in In Old Arizona , for which he won the second Academy Award for Best Actor in the 1928–1929 Academy Awards. Warner Baxter started his movie career in silent movies...

), 1935 (a Shirley Temple

Shirley Temple

Shirley Temple Black , born Shirley Jane Temple, is an American film and television actress, singer, dancer, autobiographer, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia...

adaptation called Curly Top) and a 1955 film, Daddy Long Legs (starring Fred Astaire

Fred Astaire

Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...

and Leslie Caron

Leslie Caron

Leslie Claire Margaret Caron is a French film actress and dancer, who appeared in 45 films between 1951 and 2003. In 2006, her performance in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit won her an Emmy for guest actress in a drama series...

). The latter two film versions departed considerably from the plot of the original novel.

In Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, Daddy-Long-Legs was made into a musical anime TV special in 1979 by Tatsunoko Productions, directed by Masakazu Higuchi of Superbook
Superbook
Superbook, also known as , is an anime television series produced by Tatsunoko Productions in Japan in conjunction with the Christian Broadcasting Network in the United States....

fame. This was followed in 1990 by the TV serial Watashi no Ashinaga Ojisan
My Daddy Long Legs
is a 1990 Japanese anime television series based on the novel Daddy-Long-Legs written by Jean Webster. The show was part of the container World Masterpiece Theater produced by Nippon Animation studios and was awarded the Excellent Movie Award for Television by the Japanese Agency of Cultural...

(My Daddy-Long-Legs), directed by Kazuyoshi Yokota for the Nippon Animation

Nippon Animation

is a Japanese animation studio. The company is headquartered in Tokyo, with chief offices in the Ginza district of Chūō and production facilities in Tama City....

studio as that year's installment of the studio's World Masterpiece Theater

World Masterpiece Theater

is a Japanese TV anime staple that showcased an animated version of a different classical book or story each year on 7:30p.m. on Sunday. It originally aired from 1969 to 1997 then resumed in 2007....

. The Tatsunoko TV special was released, dubbed in English, on home video in the United States.

One of Japan's longstanding charities, properly called The Foundation for Orphans from Automobile Accidents (交通遺児育成会募金), takes its inspiration as well as its nickname from the novel, providing financial support to fatherless children and calling itself the Ashinaga Ojisan Bokin (足長おじさん募金) or Daddy-Long-Legs Fund. In 2005, the Korean movie Kidari Ajeossi (Daddy-Long-Legs) was released. The film starred Ha Ji-won

Ha Ji-won

Ha Ji-won was born Jeon Hae-rim on 28 June 1978. She is a South Korean actress. She is also the Grand Prize winner of 2006 KBS Acting Awards for her performance in TV drama Hwang Jin-i.- Career :...

and Yun Jung Hoon

Yun Jung Hoon

Yun Jung Hoon is a Korean actor, best known for his role in East of Eden and Vampire Prosecutor . He is married to fellow actor Han Ga In.-Television series:* Vampire Prosecutor *Jejoongwon...

.

In India, the novel was adapted into a Malayalam movie, Kanamarayathu in 1984. Directed by I.V. Sasi and screenplay by P. Padmarajan, it starred Mammootty

Mammootty

Mammootty is an Indian film actor and producer who works mainly in Malayalam cinema. He has also acted in a few Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, and Kannada films. During a career spanning more than three decades, he has acted in more than 360 films, and is only next to Prem Nazir in the number of lead roles...

as the benefactor, Shobhana as the orphan and Rehman as her lover, in the lead roles. Mammooty won the Kerala Film Crictics Association Award for the Best Actor in 1985 for his role.

In 2009, Daddy-Long-Legs was made into a two person musical play by John Caird

John Caird (director)

John Newport Caird is a British stage director and writer of plays, musicals and operas. He is an Honorary Associate Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, a regular director with the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain and the Principal Guest Director of the Royal Dramatic Theatre,...

(book) and Paul Gordon

Paul Gordon (composer)

-Career:Gordon composed the music and lyrics for the stage musical Jane Eyre which ran on Broadway in 2001, for which he received a Tony Award nomination...

(music), which premiered at the Rubicon Theatre Company (Ventura, California) and TheatreWorks

TheatreWorks (Silicon Valley)

TheatreWorks is a non-profit, professional theater company based in Menlo Park, California and founded in July, 1970. The company is a member of the League of Resident Theatres and employs some 300 artists annually, including Equity and non-Equity actors, directors, designers and specialty artists...

(Palo Alto, California).

External links

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Plot summary

Dedication

Themes

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

See also

External links